Thank you for reading my poetry!
I believe this is one of the saddest poems I have written as its inspiration came from so frequently reading or seeing news clips about the opioid epidemic in the USA and the world.
Two instances come to mind when I think of the inspiration for my poem, written in the winter of 2018. First, in 2016, reading about an Open Letter the US Surgeon General sent 2.3 million doctors and healthcare professionals in the country warning them about the crisis they, as prescribers of painkillers, had helped create, and the moral obligation they all shared to help solve it. Second, in 2018, reading the Time magazine special report “The Opioid Diaries”, photographs by James Nachtwey, and Time’s Deputy Photo Editor Paul Moakley, which describes with words and pictures so many, painful, and sad stories about the overwhelming number of deaths caused by the so frequent opioid overdoses in the USA. The documentary touches on the sense of “fear and hope, shame and despair” that these tragedies instill in all affected (victims, relatives, and friends), and that, along with testimonies like the one below, resonated in me to the point that my poem was inspired.
….. From his mother’s kitchen table in Miamisburg, Ohio, Chad Colwell, 32, talked about how quickly the cycle can begin. “I played football in high school, and my knee and my back got injured,” he said as his 3-year-old daughter played outside. “I got prescribed painkillers, Percocet and OxyContin, and then it just kind of took off from there.”
Prescriptions gave way to cheaper, stronger alternatives. Why scrounge for a $50 pill of Percocet when a tab of heroin can be had for $5? Synthetic opioids, which have flooded into the U.S. from high-volume labs in China and Mexico, are even more potent—and a potentially fatal dose costs less than a Big Mac. On July 4, emergency workers saved Colwell after he overdosed in the driver’s seat of his truck. He says it was his fourth OD. …..
I’M ADDICT NO MORE
Just craved for a Like,
or a Following,
in those, not so long,
years of my teens,
life was uneventful,
so boring to death,
if not for my tablet,
the mall, and my cel,
and of course, those pills,
had to experiment,
otherwise, the kids,
would label me a nerd.
But there was a turn,
I shouldn’t have made,
didn’t hear my parents,
their pleas for my fate,
got me into an alley,
of synthetic state,
learned of Oxy-anything,
and the Perco-shit,
turned deeper and darker,
no hope and no faith,
it did overpower me,
couldn’t cry for help.
In the end, a coffin,
surrounded by pain,
my baby there calling me,
my mother in distress,
couldn’t keep it private,
in the news my name,
everybody wondering,
who deserves the blame,
could it be Big Pharma?
Drug dealers? A bad friend?
to me, doesn’t matter,
it was my mistake.
And certainly, I am not,
in revenge reborn,
but neither a statistic,
nor just an overdose,
I declare this battle,
is crucial to you all,
for the children growing,
and the ones to come,
for me, I’m dead, don’t worry,
not claiming what I lost,
just give me back my dignity,
I’m addict no more.
My poem is also an invitation to reflect and educate ourselves and our loved ones on the issue of drug addiction, as the minimum we can do to help eradicate this problem. I encourage you to read the excellent Time magazine special report I referred to, available online at: https://time.com/opioid-addiction-epidemic-in-america.
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